{"id":494,"date":"2023-03-03T19:12:52","date_gmt":"2023-03-03T19:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/introductiontopsychology\/chapter\/problems-with-memory\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T18:37:51","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:37:51","slug":"problems-with-memory","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/content.one.lumenlearning.com\/introductiontopsychology\/chapter\/problems-with-memory\/","title":{"raw":"The Brain and Memory: Learn It 3\u2014Amnesia","rendered":"The Brain and Memory: Learn It 3\u2014Amnesia"},"content":{"raw":"

Amnesia<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n
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amnesia<\/h3>\r\n

Amnesia<\/strong> refers to the loss of long-term memory caused by disease, physical injury, or psychological trauma. Depending on the type of amnesia, a person may lose old memories, fail to form new ones, or both.<\/p>\r\n<\/section>\r\n

One of the most famous clinical cases is K.C.<\/strong>, studied extensively by Endel Tulving and colleagues (2002). After a motorcycle accident, K.C. lost all episodic memories<\/strong> from his entire life. He could remember facts, such as the difference between a car and a truck, but he could not recall a single personal event<\/strong>, past or present. This dramatic case helped researchers understand the separation between episodic and semantic memory systems.<\/p>\r\n

There are two major forms of amnesia: anterograde<\/strong> and retrograde<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"649\"]\"Appropriate Figure 1<\/strong>. This diagram illustrates the timeline of retrograde and anterograde amnesia. Memory problems that extend back in time before the injury and prevent retrieval of information previously stored in long-term memory are known as retrograde amnesia. Conversely, memory problems that extend forward in time from the point of injury and prevent the formation of new memories are called anterograde amnesia.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n

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anterograde amnesia<\/h3>\r\n

Anterograde amnesia<\/strong> refers to the inability to form new long-term memories after the time of injury. Past memories are typically intact. (Antero-<\/em> means \"in front,\" as people ARE able to recall memories from before<\/em> the injury, but cannot commit new memories to long-term memory.)<\/p>\r\n<\/section>\r\n

It is most often associated with damage to the hippocampus<\/strong>, the brain structure critical for turning short-term experiences into long-term memories (McLeod, 2011). People with anterograde amnesia can hold new information for seconds (in short-term or working memory), but it disappears quickly because it cannot be consolidated into long-term storage.<\/p>\r\n

What can people with anterograde amnesia still do?<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n

Although they cannot form new episodic<\/strong> or semantic<\/strong> memories, they often can learn new procedural<\/strong> skills. This happens because procedural memory depends more on the basal ganglia and cerebellum, not the hippocampus (Bayley & Squire, 2002).<\/p>\r\n

You learned about the classic case of H.M. (Henry Molaison) when learning about the brain. His examples illustrates this:<\/p>\r\n